ENC Community

On Friday, May 17, commanders, pilots, aircraft maintainers from both the Navy and Marine Corps, as well as tech reps, family members and interested civilians gathered at the Havelock Tourist and Event center to listen to guest speakers and see the unveiling of a 9-foot granite tribute erected in honor of the A-6 Intruder – a brawny, workhorse attack aircraft that has seen conflicts from Vietnam to the Gulf War. >>>read more

For a couple of years now, the topline strategy coming out of the Pentagon has called for a renewed emphasis on big nation state threats like Russia and China.

We’ve heard dire warnings from smart people who say the U.S. is rapidly losing its technological edge and that war with near-peer rivals would be much harder and more costly than we’d like.

Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made improving “lethality” one of the top military buzzwords.

That’s why we were somewhat stunned to read a recent investigation report on the training ranges used by fighter jet pilots. The investigators found many training facilities are completely antiquated and unable to adequately prepare today’s units for a conventional war.

The investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General focused on ranges used to train for operations in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

For example, a Navy range in Nevada is still using 50-year-old surface-to-air simulators and electronic warfare simulators that do not “replicate the threats pilots would face in combat,” according to the report.

At a joint range up in Alaska, the electronic warfare simulators replicate Soviet missile systems from the 1980s and are so out of date that they do prepare pilots for today’s near-peer threats.

A U.S. Air Force training range in Japan features simulated surface-to-air threats “from the 1960s and 1970s,” according to the report.

Pilots complain that their training becomes “repetitive and predictable” after just a few runs.

“As a result,” the report concluded, “the aviation units in the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility could not train as they would fight.”

The IG blames these range problems on financial woes caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, ongoing counter-terrorism operations across the globe and the fluctuating budgets Congress imposed on the services during the past decade.

But at some point, the Pentagon also must take ownership of this problem.

It is not an effective use of scarce defense dollars to buy dozens of the most advanced aircraft in the world every year if the U.S. military cannot provide facilities for pilots to train on them and learn real-world warfighting skills.

This is just another example of how the politics of defense spending is eroding readiness. At one end are pressures to boost pay, mostly through targeted bonuses, and to increase the size of the force. At the other are the constant calls to ratchet up the purchase of high-tech weaponry and equipment.

So, what gets squeezed in the middle is the actual process of training the force we have to use the weapons systems we’ve already purchased.

Readiness is inherently complex and involves thousands of interrelated factors. It’s hard to hold the Pentagon leadership totally accountable for something that is essentially impossible to measure precisely.

This is especially true when most top leaders hold their top jobs only for a few years before moving on, creating a perverse incentive to kick the can down the road.

But finding Soviet-era missile systems at a training range used by F-22s and F-35s reflects a staggering level of negligence.

The inability of aviation forces to train as they fight increases the risk that they will be unable to accom- plish their mission and that attrition of pilots and aircraft will rise unnecessarily in an actual battle.

The problem has now been clearly identified. We are waiting to hear how it will be corrected.

NC Senator Harry Brown, representing Jones and Onslow Counties, believes wind turbines can have an adverse effect on the state’s military bases.

Bulldozers through cornfields, cranes erecting 5-story metal cylinders and turbine blades the length of tanker trucks: It’s the fear of Sen. Harry Brown (R-Jones, Onslow) and a handful of others who worked for years to get the wind martorium – which expires December 31 – in place.

Asked to articulate his fears, Brown says they surround BRAC – Base Realignment and Consolidation. The military is streamlining, he says, and looking for “reasons” to consolidate. A turbine impacting a training flight path could give them one, hence his support of a moratorium to study the issue.

But the military, at least publicly, has said the existing process – which requires a green light from the Department of Defense – is enough.

Right now, there’s just one utility-scale wind farm spinning in the state. The 104-turbine project, developed by Avangrid, spins near Elizabeth City, creating power for Amazon.

Drew Ball, director of the Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center, says North Carolina should be scrambling to get more. Ball says other developers are interested, but are stymied by the moratorium.

But, Brown says, “If you live in North Carolina, it’s agriculture and military – that’s our economy. If you don’t protect those two things, well I don’t know what eastern North Carolina will look like.”

Brown says retired generals and other officers, many of whom he claims have reached out in private, fear turbines would devalue bases. He declines to name names.

“They, for a while, had pretty much a gag order – I hate to say it that way, but it’s the truth – to say anything negative about alternative energy,” he says.

One many who denies that characterization is retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, former assistant secretary for energy, installations and the environment with the US Navy.

“We have an open, transparent, objective process that is tried and true,” he says. “I told this to the senators that I met last month in Raleigh. …It isn’t zero sum. It isn’t military bases or wind farms.”

Retired Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, also denies there’s any kind of gag order.

Castellaw says, “We need alternative energy as an element of our national security. …It’s not just about somebody trying to make money. What it’s about also is contributing to the energy portfolio of America and to the security that the energy portfolio provides.”

Washington, DC: North Carolina’s US Senators Richard M. Burr and Thom Tillis urged the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Senate Armed Services and Defense Appropriations Committees to purchase 93 F-35 fighter aircraft during the 2018-2019 federal fiscal year. This request, made in an April 11 letter to the Senate appropriators, would add 16 Joint Strike Fighters to next year’s budget. Senator Tillis is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Personnel Subcommittee. Senator Burr is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The President’s Budget included 77 F-35s for $10.7 billion.

Senators Burr and Tillis joined with 23 of their fellow Senators to urge that funding be increased as part of a cost savings and production effort to ensure that an optimal production rate of 80 F-35As, 24 F-35Bs and 24 F-35Cs is achieved as quickly as possible. Individual unit costs have come down 60% over the past 11 years, with the goal of a $79 million aircraft by 2020.

“We are pleased to work in close concert with Senators Burr and Tillis and their very capable staffs on this important funding effort,” said ACT President Will Lewis. “Both Senators have a completely open door policy with ACT and our community leaders on all things Cherry Point. It is also important to remind ourselves that cutting costs by increasing production is a means to an end to ensure that Cherry Point and FRC-East will remain a national military asset.”

Cherry Point is the largest Marine Corps Air Station in the world, and the planned assignment of 94 F-35B fighters to the station by the mid-2020s will mean that Cherry Point will be home to the largest deployment of Joint Strike Fighters in the Marine Corps.

The Lockheed Martin F-35B is taking to the skies at Marine Corps Auxiliary Landing Field (MCALF) Bogue in North Carolina. According to Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing fighter is scheduled to conduct sloped surface vertical-landing tests through late February.

The Marine Corp. hopes the tests, conducted by the F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force (ITF) team, will expand the expeditionary envelope for the F-35B, MCAS Cherry Point said.

“We hope to be able to relax the landing pad certification limits in terms of maximum slope/gradients in the context of expeditionary pads — existing and future,” said Bob Nantz, F-35 Pax River ITF Performance/Environmental Technical Specialist.

For the sloped surface vertical landings tests, Marines from 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at MCAS Cherry Point and MCALF Bogue built four expeditionary landing pads of different slopes: left, right, forward and back. The pads were constructed out of material similar to the AM-2 matting, according to the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (Navair). Marines use the material to build expeditionary runways or landing pads while on deployment.

MCAS Cherry Point said the test team will assess how well the F-35B operates on varying slopes in different combinations of environmental and takeoff/landing conditions.

During the month of testing, the Pax River ITF is set to analyze nearly 200 data test points. Navair said this includes how well the F-35B operates on varying slopes, impacts of head and tailwinds, and the effect of aft center of gravity in conjunction with ground slopes. MCAS Cherry Point said testing is done on a graduated basis, which means that the program starts by conducting less risk tests and increases from there.

According to Maj. Michael Lippert, F-35 Pax River ITF test pilot and detachment officer-in-charge, some test results will be instantaneous, as real-time lessons learned are capture. Other results will require more attention, as much of the data needs to undergo significant analysis before any actions are taken.

“These updates will eventually make it to our fleet aircraft while the capabilities of the F-35 will continue to transform the way we fight and win,” Lippert said.

If conditions are ideal and the schedule goes as written, however, the testing could wrap up sooner. When the tests are complete, the aircraft and test team are to depart MCALF Bogue and head back to Pax River in Maryland.

“Bogue is a unique testing location because the expeditionary landing field and the landing pads were constructed entirely by Marines. Conducting the testing at Bogue Field provides the Marine Corps with an opportunity to continue the test and development of the F-35 in the STOVL mode, while simultaneously exercising components of the MAGTF’s Air Combat Element, specifically the Marine Wing Support Squadrons resident aboard Bogue and MCAS Cherry Point,” MCAS Cherry Point told R&WI. “This is significant because it demonstrates the ability for our Marines and their equipment to precisely build expeditionary sites suitable for the conduct of F-35 operations and showcases the unique skillsets these organizations have.”

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